The Use of Embargo Right in Context of Media Relations

The provisions of embargo is listed in the Indonesian Journalistic Code of Ethics, article 7, which oblige Indonesian journalist to respect the provisions of embargo according to the agreement.“(Emphasize added). Embargo in journalistic terms means postponement of information publishing in accordance to the inquiry of news source. Thus, media is prohibited to make the information publicly until the agreed date, or minimum in the afternoon before the agreed date (DeMaria, 2004, p.2359) In practice, there is pro and contra in the implementation of embargo. At one side, embargo can protect the society from wrong information, but on the other hand this provision is sometimes considered as the obstacle for press freedom. This research aims to understand the use of embargo provisions by an institution, whether they understand their right as news sources and whether the press gives them that right. The data will be collected through in-depth interview to get the source's insight through semi-structured interview. Primary data will be the interview results with board of Ikatan Apoteker Indonesia (Indonesian Pharmacists Association) Jakarta, police official of Regional Police Department of Yogyakarta, and BPOM (Food and Drug Supervisory Agency) Yogyakarta. The interview results and analysis show that all the institutions (subjects of this research) have not really understood the concept and definition of embargo. However, practically, Food and Drug Supervisory Agency of Yogyakarta and Regional Police Department of Yogyakarta have implemented the principle of embargo to ask the media to keep/hold some sensitive information not to be published until the agreed time. The low usage of embargo right makes the institutions cannot conduct their work properly because the information leak to the public before the institution process the case completely. Because of the information leak, public can have misunderstanding about the case. The institutions' understanding of media relations also becomes a problem in several case, such as IAI (Association of Pharmacist of Indonesia that does not understand how to maintain a good relation with the media.